


a corpse is more alive

by bigender dean winchester (homosexualitie)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brothers, Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Episode: s02e22 All Hell Breaks Loose, Gen, general descriptions of a dead body, it's supernatural what do you expect, just generally fucked up relationships to death etc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:08:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29680977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/homosexualitie/pseuds/bigender%20dean%20winchester
Summary: There is blood staining Dean’s hands, and he registers it, the fact of it, but his mind is dulled in pain, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about it. Does he wash his hands? Does he get rid of his brother’s blood, what little of it he has left? Does he leave his hands stained with his own failures?
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	a corpse is more alive

**Author's Note:**

> title ripped from antigonick by anne carson because it's antigonick by anne carson. sorry this is as short as it is.

What it comes down to is this: Sam, Dean’s brother, his best friend, is dead. He is dead and Dean cradles his motionless body in his hands like a child. Dean cannot bear to think of burying him. simply because that would entail allowing his hands to leave Sam’s body, and he cannot think of a worse punishment. 

There is blood staining Dean’s hands, and he registers it, the fact of it, but his mind is dulled in pain, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do about it. Does he wash his hands? Does he get rid of his brother’s blood, what little of it he has left? Does he leave his hands stained with his own failures? In normal circumstances, he would ask Sam for advice, turning his head down so Sam wouldn’t see his shame in asking advice from his kid brother.

Right. He has to do  _ something _ , he knows as much. He has to undo this damage. He has to wake Sam up. He has to close the wound on his back and maybe then Sam will wake up, irritated and in pain.

That’s fucking stupid. Even in his grief-filled state, Dean knows that’s fucking stupid. Sam is dead, and there are very few things that can bring someone back from death. So Dean has to deal with the body in front of him in a more serious way.

A burial would be final, in a way Dean cannot imagine. Burning even more so. Lazarus rose from the dirt, not from ash. If Sam were to come back somehow, against all laws of nature, against Dean’s own beliefs-

Sam should be allowed the dignity of his body. 

Dean has seen hundreds of dead bodies, but none of them have been his brother. None of them have been so  _ wrong _ in their stillness, their refusal to react. Dean can’t imagine life being returned to this body. It looks as though it’s never been alive, like it’s completely separate from Dean’s kid brother, with his wide eyes and crooked smile.

He thinks of the body as an  _ it _ , not a  _ he _ . Dean’s brother is gone, completely absent from this vacant body. Still, Dean can’t leave Sam’s side. he can’t. He lays the body out on the table and waits. Waits for Sam’s eyes to open, waits to hear Sam’s voice again, the voice that he knows better than his own. Of course, the dead body laying on the table, the dead body which is at once Sam and Not-Sam, does not move. It does not answer Dean’s pleas.

When Sam’s body is laid out on the table, Dean can’t bear to touch it, can barely bear to look at it. He’s terrified that it will be cold to the touch, the skin stretched and unmoving. He talks to the body and prays it will talk back. He stays silent next to the body and prays they both will stay silent forever, that he will lay down on the table and decay alongside his brother.


End file.
